


A Hostage to (My Own?) Humanity

by coconutcluster



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst, Logan Patton and Thomas are mentioned, Spoilers for Selfishness vs Selflessness, but angst nonetheless, canonical-based angst, manipulative!deceit, not necessarily romantic prinxiety but the author intended it ;), roceit moment in the beginning but also not romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-01 09:19:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18333143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coconutcluster/pseuds/coconutcluster
Summary: Roman made the right decision. He'd concluded Deceit's impromptu trial with a sentence that satisfied Thomas' moral quarrel and the crack of the gavel, and he was alright with it. He'd made the right decision, right?Right?





	A Hostage to (My Own?) Humanity

**Author's Note:**

> i am still reeling from the video so please enjoy this product of my excitement

From the moment the snake-faced side disappeared from his view, Roman felt nauseous. 

His stomach flipped, mind reeled, his skin felt hot and cold at the same time and crawling - above all, his eyes stung with exhaustion (and a forceful pressure at their back, threatening to send his inner turmoil spilling over his face) and he just wanted to  _ sleep _ , really. He wanted to lay down and squeeze his eyes shut and pretend the day had never happened. He wanted to go to a dream world, a world he controlled and managed and idealized and perfected to the smallest detail. He was so, so tired.

But there was also a nagging in his chest. It squirmed and forced its way up his throat, tainting his words with a small brokenness that he hoped was unnoticeable - Deceit (the name, if he could even call it one, made his chest burn, dancing a torturous tango with the squirming) may have been a good liar, but Roman was the actor, and he was a damn good one at that, so the chance of the others noticing a minor slip-up like an uneven tone was highly unlikely (not to mention they were  _ all  _ a bit preoccupied, what with the dramatic reveal from moments ago; Roman had to admit, he… appreciated the snake’s theatrics). There was a little voice in his head urging him forward- or, well, down? His thoughts returned again and again to the same place, whichever direction it was technically, and it was with that squirming feeling and a wan, plastered-on smile that he sank out of the living room and reappeared before an barren court that tingled with life still. 

The seats of the gallery were prim, neatly filed in the better half of the room and relatively unchanged without Logan’s erudite assistance echoing from their space, though Roman felt a twinge of laughter when his eyes landed on the law dictionary still resting on one of the chairs (he’d have to be sure to grab that before leaving). The rows of seats reminded him of a theater, just a little; he waited for the familiar thrill of being on stage to set in and replace that hollow in his chest. Nothing happened. He moved on.

Despite the gallery’s consistency in his memories, the jury box felt like a husk without the eyeshadowed scowl and its curator lounging on the wooden rows - Virgil’s purple image, or rather, the lack thereof, took an odd sort of liveliness out of the room, though Roman supposed there was little in the court to begin with. (Surely none without Patton’s bright blue button-down and encouraging smiles and goofy energy from the front table.)

The judge’s stand he’d sat at just minutes ago, however, stood tall above the gallery, gallant. Refined. Utterly, completely, and undeniably empty. 

He didn’t know why he was here. There was the nagging, obviously, which had scarcely stopped since his arrival to the courtroom, but he had no real reason to listen to it in the first place. Maybe he’d been away from the Mind Palace for too long? Maybe his inspiration was just piqued with a new setting, a new set for his next batch of ideas. Or maybe he liked the feeling of sitting above everyone else and the power of decision resting on his shoulders. 

His chest just ached at that one. 

He edged down the aisle, toward the front of the room, slowly and carefully, as if his footsteps would wake a sleeping beast if they were too heavy; the platforms to the judge’s bench gave his steps a painful thud regardless. But here he was again, overlooking the court, gavel within reach, though his robes were absent now, replaced by his usual uniform, which felt as useless as this entire scenario. There was no one here now for him to judge or sentence. There was no jury to wait on, no chaos to call to order. There was no reason to hear the gavel’s decisive thunder; his fingers itched for its handle anyway.

_ It’s ‘Your Honor’ to you.  _

It was hardly a fantasy he’d ever considered - he was more than aware that he wasn’t smart enough to touch the law with any authority - but the respect that came along with that seat, that title, was a much more constant visitor in his daydreams. Of course, his daydreams very rarely involved Deceit and his smarmy smile as well (unless as an antagonist, since every hero needed a villain), but hey, he’d take what he could get. 

Desperate wasn’t a pretty look, but he couldn’t really help it at this point. 

He did, however, find that Deceit flashed through his mind now. It was an odd amalgamation of feelings that accompanied such thoughts, from something bitter that seemed to coat his throat in poison to a painful emptiness near his heart that longed already for the polite nodding and open agreement with his ideas, his wants. He wished he could get that agreement without an ulterior motive hidden beneath the rapport.

The pressure was back in his eyes now, forcing his vision of the empty kingdom-  _ court  _ before him blurry with unshed tears. He let his eyes fall shut; he was so, so tired, but sleeping seemed like a cheap solution, simply avoiding the fatigue in his bones.

“Roman. Back so soon?” 

His eyes flew open as quickly as they’d closed, somber serenity jolted by the drawl as a shot of something akin to panic coursed down his spine. Deceit sat in the jury box, leaning easily on one of the leather armrests, that slithery smirk clear on his face and eyes gleaming beneath the harsh lighting in the court. He gave a fluttering wave as Roman’s gaze landed on him. 

“I could ask you the same thing,” the creative Side clipped. 

“You could, but then you haven’t answered mine, have you?” Roman just kept his lips pursed, but Deceit didn’t seem bothered as he glanced around the courtroom, one eyebrow raised. “What do you think?” he asked, giving a sweeping gesture to the gallery. “Lovely, isn’t it? If only we had time to appreciate it earlier; it took a good bit of spontaneous design, you know. I suppose you deserve some of the credit, since you are essentially the Imagination’s core. I’m assuming,” he added casually at Roman’s furrowed look, before widening his smirk into what Roman could hesitantly call a smile. “A job well done, truly.”

The prince watched him for a moment. Deceit’s gaze remained even, level, though Roman saw the quick flit his eyes did, no doubt taking in the tension of his posture at the judge’s bench. “Thank you,” he said finally. Deceit smiled again. 

“You did well in the trial today,” he continued seamlessly, “up until the verdict, of course, but even the greatest leaders make bad calls from time to time, I suppose. No one’s perfect.”

The poison crawled up Roman’s throat once more. “I don’t think it was a bad call.”

Deceit stopped examining his gloves to meet Roman’s eyes, a single eyebrow still raised, and his smile disappeared to a tight-lipped frown before curling at the edges as he tsked, “Oh, Roman, honey.” His tone dripped with sugared ice, sickly sweet and frosty at the edges and hinting at something sharp just below the surface. “What did I tell you about lying to me?”

_ I know you’re lying, Roman.  _ “I did the right thing.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but was it the  _ good  _ thing?”

_ No.  _

The answer was in his head before Deceit even finished the question. He’d been mulling over his sentence since the moment he’d decreed it, turning it over and over in his mind like the twisting feeling in his stomach, chest- nay,  _ heart  _ aching for the chance to do it over again and declare his idea of the best course of action, the  _ actual  _ best course of action, not the one that he had to take the high road for. He wanted to be back in his judge’s robes with the audience he’d had a mere ten minutes ago, and he wanted to adjourn the trial with an order to attend the callback and a decisive nod. He wanted, more than anything, for Thomas to see that his own wishes matter too, that  _ Roman’s  _ wishes matter, that it wasn’t always selfish to pursue one’s dreams. He wasn’t always selfish.

He didn’t say any of that out loud, but the smirk that had returned to Deceit’s scaly face was more than enough to know he was as covert in his silence as he was with an airhorn and neon sign.

“So why go with the wedding, Roman?” Deceit asked, leaning his chin on his palm with feigned fervence. “What’s in it for you?”

“I… don’t feel guilty,” he answered slowly, even as turmoil raged on inside him.

“Try again.”

“...Thomas won’t feel guilty?” 

The smirk began to disappear. “What is in it for  _ you _ ?”

Roman wracked his brain, searching for an inkling of truth to defend himself with, but it was fruitless. He had nothing to gain from this mess, save for the proud smiles he’d received upon returning from the impromptu trial. 

“Validation,” Deceit articulated in the heavy silence. “Is that it,  _ Princey _ ?” 

“It doesn’t have to be the good decision this time,” Roman said, pushing past the venom dripping off that nickname as it fell from the snake’s mouth. “It’s the right one, and that’s fine for now. We’ll have more opportunities eventually.”

“None like this.”

“But this - virtue,  _ goodness _ , whatever - is important to Thomas! He’s a good person-”

“Thomas is a  _ moral  _ person.” Deceit spat the word like a curse, eyes flashing, and Roman couldn’t help but feel grateful that Patton wasn’t here. “There’s no point avoiding the truth, Roman - you chose to forfeit a dream come true to satisfy virtuous harping from the three other Sides who have  _ no  _ idea what it’s like to be in your position,  who disregard you simply for doing your  _ job  _ and still insist they know better for Thomas and his well-being!”

His fiery gaze found Roman’s wide one with a start; in an instant, his back was straight once more, and though his face was still a bit flushed, his tone was even, albeit icy, as he continued: “Selflessness is not always beneficial, Roman; there comes a time when constant altruism becomes a detriment. Feeding into Thomas’ delusion of honor will only end poorly for you.” 

“I-”

“Now make no mistake, dear prince, I’m hardly criticizing your character. In fact, I rather admire your ambition. I think we’d make a good team.” Deceit gave a smile laced with confidence, like Roman was the only one who understood its meaning; the creative Side just frowned. “But until you force your oh-so-tightly knit family to recognize  _ your  _ virtues, you are essentially, to Thomas, a fly on the wall.”

_ Useless _ . He meant useless. Roman had made the wrong decision for his own views and for Deceit’s plan, and he was useless to himself, to the snake-faced adversary before him- he was useless to Thomas. 

Any harmony Deceit had cultivated with him shattered all over again, 

“I think I’d prefer that to a snake in the grass,” Roman retorted, patience wearing thin in practically an instant; he had made a decision, and he intended to stick with it, no matter what praise he got on the contrary. Besides, his only ally in the fight for the callback had turned unsympathetic the minute Thomas admitted his true feelings toward the wedding, even with the support he’d given Roman during the trial, from the faith and respect in him as the judge to stupid jokes that made the prince feel considered in their creation. He’d been blinded by the ambition Deceit praised, and he was done with this. “I did what made Thomas feel like a better person, and he’s satisfied with that. Let it go and move on, Deceit.” He pushed his chair back and stood, hands braced on the desk before him, eyes flickering over the empty gallery as he stood tall above it once more. “If you’ll excuse me-”

“No, I’ll go.” Roman’s gaze snapped back to the critical one in the jury. “You have a visitor on the way, and as much as I’d love to witness his face upon seeing  _ this  _ scene, I’ve had my fill of incompetence today.” Deceit rose from his seat with a sweep of his cape, sending one last scathing glance over his shoulder, eyes ablaze with a promise Roman didn’t care much for at all. “Farewell for now, Roman. I have a feeling we’ll be talking again very soon.” 

And he was gone.

Roman stared at the jury box, hands curled into fists on the desk as his eyes seared into the abandoned seat that sat askew from Deceit’s abrupt exit. His face felt hot, and the discomfort was still squirming in his chest. 

The  _ guilt _ . The guilt was still squirming in his chest. Or remorse, perhaps. Yearning. Betrayal. Loneliness. Maybe it was all of them - he wasn’t sure, but if so, how odd for such a swarming cocktail of emotions to make him feel so very hollow. A hurricane raged in him, and yet he felt nothing. Perhaps he was in the eye, the barren peace in the center… or perhaps this was simply the calm before the storm. 

“Roman! There you are!”

His eyes inched to the door that had swung open, revealing a slightly more-disheveled-than-usual Virgil whose bangs fell in front of his face wildly, as if he’d run his fingers through them a lot. 

“How do you guys manage to navigate this place?” Virgil breathed, knocking the door shut behind him and shuffling further through the gallery. “It took me ten minutes just figuring out how to get back to the Mind Palace.”

“...you just have to think about it.”

“Oh.” He blew a stray lock of hair out of his eyes. “That would have been nice to know ten minutes ago.” 

Roman gave a small smile, more polite than amused, really, though Virgil’s confusion with the Mindscape’s inner workings was still entertaining. The small bit of energy Roman had left when reappearing in the court had all but drained completely; he was running thin now, and he simply couldn’t force the dramatics back into his persona. 

“Princey?” He shook the stupor of his thoughts away to find Virgil staring at him, eyebrows furrowed. 

“What?”

“I asked why you came back here. Of all places,” he added bitterly. “I checked your room and you weren’t there, and I didn’t really expect  _ this  _ to be your, uh, creative sanctuary. Why’d you end up here?”

Roman blinked at him (and uncurled his fists, since his hands were starting to get sore). “You went looking for me?”

“I mean… yeah.” Virgil shoved his hands in his hoodie pockets, sending a furtive glance around the room. “You just seemed bummed when you sank out. I get why, obviously-” Roman flinched, “-but… I don’t know. I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“Ah.” Roman sank back into the judge’s chair with a heavy sigh without actually answering - maybe some of his dramatics remained. Virgil just raised his eyebrows and shuffled past the bar, making his way up the stairs to the bench before settling on the edge of the desk and giving the creative Side a  _ Go on  _ look. “I hated that.”

“What?”

“The trial. I hated it.” It was a partial truth, but a snake was no longer around to bite him for it. 

Virgil didn’t seem convinced, however. “You looked like you were having fun at the beginning.” 

Another sigh heaved its way from his core as his eyes traced the wall; maybe he really should leave the lying to Deceit. “Well, you seemed so enthused throughout its entirety, I just  _ had  _ to join in.”

“You don’t have to get an attitude, Princey.” Roman didn’t respond; Virgil’s shoulders fell, almost imperceptibly, as he nudged the prince’s knee with the tip of his Converse. “What’s up?”

“Did I do the right thing?”

There was a beat of silence as Virgil frowned and leaned back, as if the question blindsided him. His eyes flickered over Roman’s somber expression. “You made Patton happy,” he said slowly, his hands finding their way back into the patched pockets of his jacket, “and Logan seems glad to have the situation over with.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Now it was the anxious Side’s turn to sigh - he pursed his lips and shook his head as he thought, waging some war in his mind for an answer to offer, before he shrugged. “I think so,” he admitted, though his voice raised at the end, molding it into a question more than anything. “Thomas is pretty relieved, so if that’s what makes something right, then yeah, of course you did the right thing.”

“But?”

“But a part of him is still really, really upset.” Roman finally met Virgil’s eyes, which seemed to glimmer with concern under the courtroom lights. “I’m sorry you had to give up the callback, Roman.”

“I didn’t have to,” he said quietly. Virgil made an indecipherably noise in the back of his throat, but Roman made a good guess that it was in agreement. “Did  _ you  _ want to go to the wedding?”

“Of course not. Do you know how many people are gonna be there?” He gave a crooked smile, small and tinged with hope- but Roman didn’t laugh. 

“Why didn’t you say that during the trial?” 

He could have had someone else on his side - someone else  _ was  _ on his side, and yet he was still left alone during the trial to fight for Thomas’ dream come true. Well, not totally alone, but he would take Virgil on his side instead of Deceit any day. (Or both; both would have been good, too.) The hollowness in him seemed to double, swallowing up any inkling of pride and resignment left as Virgil’s smile fell.

“I didn’t-” The anxious side’s face turned sour, and Roman felt his spirits plummet.

“You didn’t want to agree with Deceit,” he finished, voice deadpan; Virgil’s mouth snapped shut. “Virgil-”

“Don’t say what I think you’re about to say.”

“-he made a good point!”

“God dam-” Virgil squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head into his hands, taking a deep breath as if to reorient himself. “Maybe he did, but he’s  _ him _ , and I’m not exactly on board with siding with him.”

“You could have sided with  _ me _ ,” Roman contested, trying in vain to prevent the crack in his voice, “or you could have put your grudge aside and stood up for what you actually wanted-”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” The lights overhead flickered as Virgil’s face darkened - Roman swore he saw something shift in the anxious Side’s eyes - and his gaze seared into the prince’s indignant one as he snapped, “ _ Especially  _ not about him.” 

Roman expected a wave of anger, of irritation or frustration or some kind of fire, to rise up in him then, expected a fight or a belligerent streak to show itself… but whatever incendiary remarks he was awaiting were long gone. He just let the last of his posture crumble as he slumped back in his chair and crossed his arms, eyes as blank and unfocused as he felt. “He agreed with me,” he said, flinching a moment later at how pitiful it sounded in the buzzing silence of the courtroom. 

“Yeah, you guys seemed real buddy-buddy,” Virgil snapped. 

“He’s the only one who agreed with me! You all called my idea selfish the entire trial and he supported it- what did you expect me to do?”

“Oh, and the flirting was, what, a  _ necessity  _ for that ‘support’?”

Roman froze. “What?”

“It was every single time he talked to you!” Virgil continued, though he seemed to be talking more to himself than the befuddled prince in front of him, “And when you testified and he made that  _ stupid  _ face, and you laughed at his stupid jokes, and he said he- it- it was  _ nauseating _ !” 

_ Flirting?  _ Roman had been uncomfortable a few times during the trial from Deceit’s odd behavior; he hadn’t truly attributed it to anything more than the snake’s off-kilter disposition, but as he reviewed their interactions in his mind… he really should have noticed that, shouldn’t he? He was a romantic, after all. 

More importantly, though: “Are you  _ jealous _ ?”

Virgil’s flushed cheeks flushed redder. “What? No, I’m-” he spluttered, before snapping his mouth shut and shutting his eyes again, grumbling from between grit teeth, “He was manipulating you, Roman, and it got on my nerves.”

_...Ah _ . Roman drooped again (he was beginning to wonder if this is how a dying flower felt, doomed to slump farther and farther toward the ground until it had nowhere to face but the dirt it came from, too decrepit to even face the sky as its life slipped away), the fatigue he’d become accustomed to as of late flooding back to him in an instant. “Well, I guess it’s good he didn’t get the ending he wanted, then.”

Virgil stopped mid-fume to meet Roman’s gaze (if that’s what one could call it, since Roman was staring absently at the center of the desk); the tension in the anxious Side’s shoulders dissipated, and he scrunched his mouth to the side as the pair was draped in silence once more. For some reason, that of all things made the pressure return behind Roman’s eyes. His stomach twisted at the thought of crying in front of Virgil, but when his vision started to blur again, he didn’t close his eyes and blink it clear. 

“You should have chosen the callback,” Virgil said suddenly. 

Roman looked at him with a languid start, eyebrows furrowed. He was getting way too many mixed messages today. “But Thomas didn’t want to upset his friends-”

“You said yourself, Roman, they would have understood. I know it, you know it. Deceit knew it,” he muttered, a reluctant afterthought, “even if he wanted to lie instead. They’d know how much an opportunity like that matters to Thomas. Patton and Logan are satisfied with the wedding sentence, but I’m not.”

“...why not?”

“Because you’re like this!” With doleful eyes and a distinct hoarseness to his voice, he gestured to Roman, still drooped in the judge’s chair, and said, “You’re not yourself, Roman- I’m mad that Deceit was right about you being crushed, and I’m mad that none of us listened, and you should have chosen the callback because I need you to be  _ you _ !” He sucked in a breath, a small one, as Roman watched him with wide eyes. “We need you,” he corrected quickly. “Thomas needs you, I mean. He needs his creativity.” 

Roman blinked and tried to pick through Virgil’s words bit by bit, but he was still a bit lost. He did, however, feel a tiny spark in his chest - a light in the dark. “So… what do I do?”

“Talk to Thomas?” Virgil caught sight of Roman’s knit brow and gave a small chuckle. “I can help, if you need it. If you want me to. Probably.”

The squirming Roman had felt since the trial ended seemed to unravel itself then, at the prospect of fixing what he regretted and grasping the opportunity he’d wanted since the moment Thomas received that phone call. There was still a flurry of feelings he couldn’t quite name, still rushing around and crashing together in his heart, but there was a semblance of something warm, something whole, filling in the hollow at last - a flicker of hope to battle the hurricane inside, and it came in the form of Virgil’s expectant gaze.

“Let’s do this.”


End file.
